Calla Lily
by stilessttilinski
Summary: Lily Luna Potter is a nothing but a name. - - LilyTeddy - for Kc.
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**a/****n: for Kc** **[**_eyesonbluefire_**], my new friend, with love. she is amazing and gorgeous and v. v. nice, and i love her. you should all go read her stories, alright?  
>also for my <strong>_**fantastic**_** home. i love you all.**

**this is my very first 10K, so i hope you guys like it!  
>(627: i was writing it and it kept going on and on, so never mind about the 10K, it's kind of...more.)**

**disclaimer: j.k. rowling ©**

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><p><strong>Calla Lily<strong>_  
>word count: 5,191<em>

The sound of laughing children in their undiluted innocence is sharp in the hazy air. Mothers scold red-faced, sticky fingered children as their heads bow in shame, the remains of an ice cream cone smeared on brightly-coloured tee-shirts.

Lily sits on a park bench, pomegranate-coloured hair like ribbons on her shoulders, freckled legs barely touching the grass underneath her. Her arms crossed and mouth set in a scowl, no one dares to approach her. She sits and sulks like the pretty devil she is and in her six-year-old splendour, with the sun kissing her hair and beating down on the skin of her reddened cheeks; she is a princess, the spoiled daughter of the scarred war hero.

Restlessly she shuffles her feet on the grass and stares down, listening for the sound of footsteps as they warn her of his arrival, the heavy steps of a seventeen-year-old boy—_man_—and who also happens to be her very best friend.

And so he arrives, with his hand in his turquoise hair and his eyes the exact shade of green as her jade eyes. "Calla Lily, what's wrong?"

She lets out a quiet 'hmph' and faces the other way, nose turning up immaturely. "Not telling."

Sighing exaggeratedly, he replies with a hint of an amused smile at the corner of his mouth as he conceals a badly-wrapped package behind his back, "Well, I suppose this present's gone to waste, then..."

Immediately as expected, the six-year old straightens and scoots closer to Teddy, smiling sweetly and folding her hands in her lap patiently like a renounced devil-turned-angel. "Teddy! Hi there! I really, _really_ like presents, y'know." She tries to peer around him at the tiny package, no more than two centimeters tall and one wide, but he tugs her onto his lap and tickles her mercilessly, laughing. His fingers brush her stomach as she laughs loudly, and he smiles down at his god-sister as she squeals with the delight of a bird in the early morning.

"Oh, so _now_ you want to see me, huh?" She writhes around in his lap giggling, and a small hand reaches up to tug at his now bright-yellow curls.

"I – _always –_ want to – see you – Teddy!" she declares loudly between giggles, looking like a redheaded little orangutan with her hair curling in the intense heat and eyes glossed over in her mirth. "Now – give me – my – present!"

He, chortling, moves his hands up in surrender, knowing he can never say no to this little orangutan-girl as she climbs off of him in one swift movement. She looks up at him expectantly with stars in her eyes and hair rumpled.

Being the youngest, Lily is used to getting what she wants, when she wants. With one sparkling tear and a trembling of her tiny chin, Harry Potter would go to the ends of the world to make her happy – and Teddy is no exception to this. She is really the chink to his armour, his Achille's heel and really, he doesn't mind as much as he thought he would.

Eyes crinkling with his warm smile, he pulls the brown, crinkled paper out from behind him, enclosed in his large palm.

Lily pries it from his hand and removes the paper eagerly, only to look down, confused, at the present. The sunlight shines down upon the pair as she stands in front of him with an unmoving, Muggle chess piece in her small palm, he smiling and reaching out to ruffle her hair.

"It's a chess piece, see," he prompts gently as she stares hard at the marble.

"What am I s'posed to do with this, Teddy?" The white marble pawn stands straight in her hand, stark white against her freckled skin. She slips it into the pocket of her dotted dress and blinks long eyelashes at him, the crease in her eyebrows deepening.

He simply grins, standing, and pulls her onto his back. She wraps her legs around his waist, whooping noisily as kids stare.

The chess piece stays in her pocket, the cold marble pressing into her hip as she winds her arms around his neck, and they walk through the bevy of children and fretting mothers and head home.

* * *

><p>She receives a black marble pawn in April, on a rainy afternoon. Carefully, standing on the tips of her toes on a wooden chair, she balances it next to the white one on an old, rusty bookshelf.<p>

* * *

><p>The next piece doesn't come until her ninth birthday. She receives an overindulgence of presents (which she'd never thought possible) – a broomstick from her parents, books from her aunts and uncles (<em>Hogwarts: A History <em>from Aunt Hermione – figures), a multitude of Puking Pastilles and Fainting Fancies from her two brothers ("You'll need it for later!"), and an assortment of miscellaneous objects from her cousins (half of which have no use whatsoever).

When the party is over and James' finished scarfing down his fourth slice of cake, she goes to stow the presents away in her room. As she's almost finished filling her pillowcase with the candy, someone knocks at the door thrice.

She shoves the remaining pieces of orange-purple candy into the pillow and leaps off the bed toward the door, opening it to find a shock of turquoise hair and a nineteen year old man.

Almost instinctively he lifts her into the air and swings her around. She laughs a lot around him, and right now her mouth is open and her head is thrown back and her loud, boisterous laugh resounds in the white-walled room.

"Teddy, oh, I've missed you!" she places a sloppy kiss to his cheek, feet stepping back down onto the wooden floor and adds innocently, cocking her head for better effect, "It's my _birthday_, Teddy."

"Oh, _is_ it now?" he smirks as she places her hands on her hips and cocks an eyebrow, looking like a mini version of her mother – but oh, how different they are. She with her expectations and _I want, I need_ and her mother with her Gryffindor pride – and bravery.

"Teddy," she warns, waggling a finger at him as he shakes his head.

"Well," he chuckles with a feigned surprised expression. He pulls a red wrapped gift from his trouser pockets, "would you look at that!"

She yelps and reveals a gap-toothed smile, her two front teeth missing and pink gums looking naked beside the other pearly whites. "Teddy, I lo-o-o-ve you!"

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, so _now_ you love me."

"I love you – forever and ever and ever, Teddy!" Lily sings, ripping the red waxy paper off and a grin stretching her cheeks out as she stares at the rook made of marble. Quite cheerfully, she stands up on the stool and places it side-by-side next to her black pawn, and there it stands, fine and proud and wonderful.

"'Course you do, poppet," he teases, helping her down as his hand slips easily into hers and he feels at home once again. She smiles innocently up at him in her gap-toothed grandeur and tangled red braids, and his eyes flicker to jade green.

* * *

><p>Winter arrives four months after her birthday has passed, bringing crystalline flakes of snow, woolly scarves and hats and gloves, and new Christmas presents.<p>

She flits over at each of her cousins' presents, insisting she open hers last. She scrunches her mouth in disapproval and Lucy's Muggle books and enjoys the music drifting soulfully from Lysander's guitar and glances sceptically at James' folded empty hands. Finally, she turns to her own pile of gifts (the largest pile of them all) and tears them open one by one, gasping with the delight of a naive child, and gazing with wonderment at the pretty objects that occupy her mind. The last present is his – she expects a black rook, and there it arrives looking like nightshade in contrast to the pure white of the white marble rook.

She thanks him over and over, bounding over to hug him, the side of her face pressed to his stomach. He ruffles her hair playfully and twines with hand with Victoire's as their fingers shine with diamond rings.

* * *

><p>She makes a lovely flower girl, dressed in a cream-coloured dress and a basket of subdued pink flower petals, and wearing a smile so dazzling it lights up the faces of everyone around her. The entire wedding is made up of muted colours and creams and tans.<p>

As she begins to walk down the aisle, tossing petals left and right and concentrating on not falling over, smiling at the guests giddily, she reaches for another handful of flower petals. Instead she finds something cold and hard and feeling utterly of marble. Confused, she looks down into the depths of the basket.

There she receives her white bishop. Teddy sends her a wink from the altar.

* * *

><p>The beginning of Hogwarts – the black bishop. <em>when she <em>– is Sorted into Slytherin. Is ignored by James for a week. Writes to Teddy five days a week and he replies just as often. Goes home for the holidays, sees Teddy for three days.

Second Year – the black knight. _when she – _meets her new best friend, Amity McLaggen. Gets her first detention, followed by many more. Becomes a troublemaker. Writes to Teddy four days a week. Goes home for the holidays, sees Teddy once. Calls a 'hullo' before he has to leave again, leave to do his job and take care of his kid and love his wife. Only in-person interaction of the year.

Third Year – the white King. _when she_ – Starts back-talking to teachers. Discovers she's rubbish at Divination. Breaks curfew with Amity. Writes to Teddy once a week. Goes home for the hols. Doesn't see Teddy.

Fourth Year – the black Queen. _when she _– Gets asked out on her first date. Starts flirting outrageously. Wears provocative clothing. Stops writing altogether. Starts staying at Hogwarts for the holidays.

Fifth Year – the black King. _when she_ – Loses her virginity. Receives only three OWLs. Goes out to Hogsmeade every weekend, late at night. Parties. Loses any contact with Teddy.

Sixth Year – the white knight. _when she _– Loses herself completely. Sleeps around. Fails her classes (except Potions and Charms).

Forgets Teddy.

* * *

><p>The chess pieces no longer sit cleanly polished on the top of her dresser. She no longer dusts them every day and stares and them and <em>hopes<em>, and remembers him. Only vague memories of him and constant smiles swim in her mind as she pushes them farther and farther back, into the recesses.

Summers pass over the years as Teddy gets busier and busier; soon enough he has absolutely no time to visit them.

She finds she sort of likes being reckless Lily, however. It's nearing the end of Sixth Year and she just gets wilder and wilder – with no one to control her. Amity is abandoned. Her parents cannot talk her out of things. Teachers give her detention. They do nothing. Secretly she thinks she's been this way all along – wild and boisterous, and her deprivation of Teddy only fuelled this transformation (or realisation, really) further.

Occasionally she'll think back and miss the way she used to laugh and it was real, smile genuinely and brighten others around her, but now she's stripped of that opaque innocence.

Chess pieces shoved haphazardly into the first draw lay scattered on the mahogany wood, dusty and an austere white.

Lily closes the draw abruptly, sucking in a lungful of air. Amity's voice floats through the air, reaching her ears and carrying the sound of desperation.

"Potter, hurry up; classes are starting soon!"

"Yeah, sure," replies Lily, shaking her head at the old chess pieces and vowing silently to throw them away later.

She slings her bag over her shoulder and walks away, without a second thought.

* * *

><p>It is a Sunday when she realises. As she draws a careful line around her eyes, holding a dark pencil in her practised hand, she takes in the scent of Amity's peach-mango perfume and realises.<p>

She quite likes the smell of his cologne. She remembers back in the time of childish glee when e would envelope her into a hug, folding his long limbs against her back as she wound her arms around his knees, his waist, his back. The smell of freshness and spring breezes as he would hand her a chess piece with twinkling eyes or tell her she ought to get cleaned up because it was time for dinner, or just when he'd sit cross-legged by her and talk.

The typical burning sensation comes suddenly behind her eyelids and the mirror in front of her melts into a haze and she flies toward the cabinet with angry eyes and rips open the draw and when the chess pieces clatter to the floor, rolling under her bed or colliding heavily with a trunk or a forgotten sock, she collapses on the bed and cries.

Amity finds her curled up on her bed, hours later. She nudges her gently in the side and pokes at her until Lily lets out a groan.

"Don't wanna wake up yet..." she mumbles almost incoherently. Amity sighs and pulls out her wand, flicking it up.

Lily flies up, hanging in the air, suspended by a sliver of invisible force wrapped like tendrils on her left ankle. Her eyes fly open and she glares at the perpetrator, who glares right back. "The _hell _are you doing, Amity!"

"Waking you up, you dolt. You've been passed out on your bed since morning!" Amity retorts indignantly, and with another swish Lily flops down back onto her bed. "I'll be going now, since you obviously don't want to talk to me. You've already been ignoring me for six months now; why would you change your mind now?"

Lily rolls her eyes and fists her hands in the warmth of the green covers.

"I mean, it's not like I'm your effing _best friend_ or anything. Clearly our friendship means nothing to you," Amity hisses under her breath. "I'm about as use to you as a fucking bloody tampon!"

"Whatever, Amity. At least I'm fucking having fun with my life. Ever since that prank in Fifth Year, and ever since that stupid Howler, you've been acting uptight." Lily narrows her eyes just as Amity does.

"Potter, shut the fuck up," the blonde spins angrily on her heels and Lily listens to the pounding of her feet and the rush of blood in her head.

* * *

><p>Lily loses everything by the time Sixth Year is over. Amity ceases to exist in Lily Luna Potter's mind, and then summer arrives like a mallet to the head.<p>

On the last day Lily sweeps her belongings into her trunk, enlarged on the inside, and the chess pieces are stowed in a secret compartment on the inner lining of her trunk.

The chess pieces are there for a reason, were given for a reason – to help her in growing and to comfort her along the years and obviously serving as a reminder of the turquoise-haired man she tries too hard to wash away. She drags her trunk up the marble staircase – thump, thump, thump, thump – in the symphony of her light footsteps and loudly, lonely beating heart. She doesn't want to go home to the disappointed faces of Daddy and Mum, and her two elder brothers. She doesn't want to see the look of helplessness in Harry Potter's eyes, something far worse than anger, far worse than sadness, and far more potent. She doesn't want to see the creased lines of worry permanent on Ginny Potter's face and she doesn't want to hear her Mum's soft, slight sigh every time she sees her youngest child, her only daughter. She doesn't want to see James constantly shaking his head around her, casting shadows across both their faces and she wants her absolute favourite brother to speak to her again, like he used to. And Albus – Albus' emerald eyes so much like their father's just singe her and char her with the murderous, disgusted looks he sends her on daily basis.

As if they're even a family anymore.

As if any one of them loves her anymore.

She muses as she steps off the train and onto the platform, trunk in hand, whether it's Teddy's fault after all.

* * *

><p>The first month of summer is absolutely torturous. Teddy has not gone to the house yet and Lily dreads the day he does (she calls it S-Day – <em>Shit<em>-what-the-fuck-do-I-do _Day_.) She doesn't want to see the emotions of all of her family members reflected in his changing eyes. She definitely doesn't want him to hand her the last parcel, the last present – the white queen.

When – _if_ – she reprimands herself – _if _he comes she thinks shell just go screaming and running in the other direction. This is the first time she's seen him in years and years and years, and the thought hits her suddenly, clogging up her throat as the prickling burning sensation comes back again with hell to raise.

One summer evening when the sun has not yet set and a vague hazy radiance pans across the floor of her bedroom, Harry calls for her.

"Lily?" Lily remembers when her father used to just barge into her room unannounced, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her downstairs for dinner. Now he knocks, and he speaks quietly, and she can practically hear the almost-gray streaks in his hair. "Lily, it's time for dinner."

Lily with her back against the disarray of pillows and toes brushing against the wooden board at the bottom of the bed, enfolds a chess piece in her palm and throws it carelessly to the carpeted floor.

She tugs at the hem of her shorts down unconsciously, uncomfortably, and yanks a long sleeved, thankfully high-collared shirt over her t-shirt, covering it effectively. She listens carefully for her dad's voice again.

"Dinnertime, Lily. Come downstairs," says her dad a little more firmly.

"Coming, alright?" Lily pulls her hair into a tight ponytail and flings open the door. "Relax."

Striding past her dad with a chess piece hastily stuffed in her pocket, she pretends not to notice his crumpled expression.

Boiled potatoes and steak and green peas. She pushes the peas around her plate with her fork, making faces on her plate and staring down so she won't catch any of their eyes.

"Lily, eat," her mum says firmly, catching her daughter's eyes finally, a flicker of barely registered anger passing through Ginny Potter's hazel eyes. "Lily, eat your food!"

Rolling her eyes, Lily lifts her napkin from her lap, crumples it in her hand and throws it down on the table defiantly. With a loud squeak she pushes the wooden chair back, scraping it against the wood of the floor and deliberately leaving white scratches.

"Lily Potter!" her mum cries indignantly, standing up as well and slamming her fork onto the table. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To my room, where I can sit without being glared at by any of you!" Lily half-yells. Albus sits in his chair and raises his eyebrows at Lily. Thankfully James isn't here tonight and is instead working late hours in the Department.

"Lily, what the _hell_'s been going on with you?" Ginny retorts. "How'd you become..._this?"_

"Simple, Mum," she says viciously. "Everyone stopped. Just stopped. Teddy left, and I was alone."

She stomps up the stairs, red ponytail angrily getting pulled out by nimble fingers as they meet knots and tangles and as she slams her bedroom door behind her she lets out a frustrated shriek.

"Lily?"Albus' deep voice sounds through the door. "Lily. Open the door."

"No," she replies childishly, tears beginning to well up again after hearing her brother's voice.

"God, are you crying? You've been like a fucking water fountain lately, it seems," he says sarcastically. Lily almost grins at that.

"Who told you that?" she replies somewhat reluctantly, somewhat curiously.

"Amity."

The sound of her best friend's name anguishes her. She has spent the last few months hating her, forgetting her, filling her mind with poisonous thoughts but it seems once someone says her name, the hurt and the hate seem to wash away.

There is silence and Albus speaks up.

"She misses you, Amity does," he says quietly though the door. "She's been telling me."

She shakes her head to herself, wetness on her cheeks.

"She really does, Lily."

She flings open the door and pulls Albus in for a hug, her head barely brushing his shoulders.

"Thanks, Al," she says almost incoherently. He nods, ruffles her hair and leaves, stuffing his hands into his pockets as his brotherly duties are done for the day.

She shuts her bedroom door behind her and looks for a window.

* * *

><p>Minutes later she is perched on the darkened roof of her house, gazing up at the sky as it proceeds to burn into blackness around her. She pulls the chess piece out of her pocket – the black queen – and fingers it in her hands, running the tips over the cool smooth marble.<p>

She holds in between her index finger and thumb, twirling it expertly.

She flings it into the garden in a high arch, watches as it sails through the air openly and lands with a gentle sound of marble meets earth. And she climbs back through the window, unsmiling.

* * *

><p>"Look, obviously she isn't doing very well! Let me talk to her!" a masculine voice shouts, muffled under her floorboards. Her heart leaps to her throat and her heartbeat increases tenfold and then slows to the slow croak of a frog in one second, but then she realises it's James.<p>

"She'll just push you away," says her father quietly, so quietly she almost doesn't hear him, but then she hears a loud stomping noise and thirty seconds later a thunderous banging on her door.

She glances at her clock, which reads three-oh-four AM, groans and turns over on the bed. She rolls off the bed with a thump and a grumble, and the groggily opens the door.

James shakes her, hard. "Lily, wake up!"

"I'm awake, you great big prat," she says sleepily, leaning her head on his shoulder as she lets herself get shaken in a fashion similar to one of a rag doll's, and falls back onto her bed.

"Albus tells me you've been crying an awful lot lately," he announces with a flourish, cocking an eyebrow at his baby sister. Albus' voice echoes from the room next door.

"I told you not to tell her _I_ said it, idiot!"

James rolls his eyes and waves a hand in the general direction of Al's room. "Yeah, yeah."

He turns back to his sister, all signs of mirth having vanished from the planes of his face. "Mind telling me what's been going on, orang-utan? I'll kill it for you."

"It's stupid, James."

"I still want to hear it." He stretches out on her bed and gives her an appraising look as she glares.

"Couldn't have cared sooner, eh?" she scowls and it dents her pretty features. He cringes, but she continues. "I'm lost. I'm lost and I can't find my way back home."

He stares confusedly at her, scratching his forehead. "Lily, you're at home."

She slaps him. "Not _here, _you prat! Merlin, don't you have a poetic bone in your fuckin' body?" She thros her hands up in frustration. "I can't find my way back to _me."_

"What're you going on about?"

"James, honestly, for someone who's considered best Auror in the department, you sure are thick." She pinches the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes shut. "I don't know who I am anymore. The Lily I used to be with Ted's chess pieces and orangutan-girl and Amity's best friend, is gone. And I don't know what to do about it."

He blinks. "Is that all?"

She stares at him sullenly.

James barks out a laugh. "That's it, then! That's really all it is?"

For a second Lily looks hurt, before her exterior freezes into the same icy Lily she's been since she stopped talking to Teddy, and then she yanks the bed covers and leaves James rolling to the floor.

"Oi! Lily, that's not what I meant." He picks himself off the ground. "I meant – I changed too, orangutan. People change; it's a part of life. You'll get over it."

The girl swings her legs under the covers and scoffs. "I'm also not eating, by the way. Oh, and I'm a god damn slut and I sleep around, and I blow up at everyone and everything, and I'm a downright _bitch_."

She buries her head under the covers and turns away from James so he won't see the shininess of her eyes.

Eventually the part of the bed that sags down as he sits evens out and the lights turn off, and the door shuts with a click.

* * *

><p>Victoire comes over one day to see her. Her face is full of triumph as if <em>yeah, you were his best friend and you were cute, but you weren't enough<em> and _not my fault you stopped writing him, not my fault you couldn't care enough_ and on her hip is a beautiful rosy-cheeked newbown. There's two other kids around five and seven trailing after her and a toddler around four in a stroller.

She thinks they must fuck a lot.

Victoire is cool and quiet, and says thing only when being spoken to, yet somehow comes off as a polite and lovely person (to her parents, at least.) She lets Lily carry her newborn and all the while Lily wonders what it'd be like if she were ever in Vic's place, and all the while Lily ponders everything. Then she sobers up and wonders why all of a sudden Teddy's eating away at her mind again.

She really isn't jealous of Victoire, nor does she care that Victoire's rubbing in her victory, because to Lily this had never been a competition to begin with.

All she wanted was her best friend – one friend – she just wanted to see him in the summers and breaks of First, Second, and Third Year misery, but he never came.

He never came, and so she dwindled down to almost no letters and eventually lost him, forgot him.

Because the last time she'd thought of Teddy in a romantic way was way back when she was eight or nine or something, and that's when she'd thought he was her knight in shining armour and had ludicrous ideas of fantastical fairytale endings. She'd barely thought of it even then and when she'd had stupid assumptions of what the meaning of love was (fact: she still doesn't know now) and even now she does _not_ want to jump in a bed with him and make multiple Metamorphogus-werewolf-orangutan (personality-wise, at least for orangutan) babies.

She just misses having him _there_ is all. (Because he was _always_, even when no one else was. And she needs him now more than ever.)

A different chess piece gets thrown at a potted plant that night.

* * *

><p>One day she realises she doesn't even know how to play chess. She stares at the pieces on her nightstand, lying in bed with the left side of her face pressed into a pillow.<p>

Well, she deduces thoughtfully, grabbing the white knight, it can't be much fun. Honestly it looks like something rich snobs would play.

With that thought she tosses it into a trashcan.

* * *

><p>The evening in July Teddy comes for dinner Lily conveniently has plans. It's her father's birthday and she gets up early to wish him a good one and to present him with a bottle of men's cologne, some new reading material (How to Express Your Feelings Without Yelling, 101), a tie with a Snitch stitched into it and a strategically places black bishop in the box.<p>

She calls out a quick goodbye and heads out into the rain, strolling down the street in a bright orange, highlighter-coloured windbreaker (some long ago present of Uncle Ron's) that clashes terribly with her hair.

Perching down on a swing in an empty playground, she tries to recall the location of a neighbouring zoo.

When she arrives at the entrance, blinking at the statues of elephants and plastic plants, the Muggle asks her gruffly if she'd like a ticket and she pulls out a couple of pounds to make the transaction. By the time she buys her ticket and makes her way to the Primate exhibit, there's just an hour and a half till closing time, and that is enough.

She walks into a brightly coloured room painted turquoise, and walks slowly over to the glass, pressing her fingers into the clear hardness. A little boy nearby chatters animatedly to his mother, his voice echoing distantly, impossibly cheerful in her head. She listens to his mother's reply, a tranquil, gentle voice like petals on a flower, and sits down on a bench.

She watches the orangutan in its glass prison and knows it must feel lonely, stifled. It drags itself by its arms around its glass cage, a blanket draped over its head as it scratches its head absentmindedly.

She swallows with her hands folded neatly in her lap, a stinging sensation in her eyes. The orangutan looks up with dark, clear eyes, burnt red fur covering its body. She smiles at it before it turns away and makes its way to the poorly-fashioned hammock, in between two small, leafy trees.

Sometimes it's easy and she weaves her way through life, her friends falling well behind and boys running amok as they try to gain and keep her attention (which, with Lily Luna Potter, is practically impossible.)

And most of the time it's not. Most of the time the brokenness runs its course through her veins and the poison etches itself deep in her crystal heart and she has this deep-pitted desire for friends, for someone who'll stay around longer than a day, a week. There had only been two people of the sort; the first of which being Teddy – which had quite obviously backfired. The second had been Amity and that hadn't worked out too well either.

It wasn't even either of their faults; really, Lily only likes to pretend it was – just so she can spare herself the new feeling of guilt. Lily observes the orangutan with renewed eyes, and sits there until the boy with his rainbow-coloured cap and his mother with the voice like slippery soap on wet skin leave, abandoning her with empty thoughts.

When they leave, she pulls her wand – cherry, dragon heartstring – out of her boot, mulling over her thoughts as she weaves it expertly through the empty spaces between her fingers. In the end it clatters to the floor, the clatter forcing a sigh out of her lips. She picks it up and stuffs it back into her boot, the moment lost.

She presses her fingers to the glass again, ghosting over the surface for a moment, before leaving the exhibit with a profound heart and hands jammed hastily in her pockets.

* * *

><p><strong>an: next chapter should be up soon!**

**please don't favourite without reviewing!**


	2. Tell

**a/n: next chapter is up – faster than i expected, actually. please read & review accordingly, thanks.  
>credits to ella-beth for brian – he's hers wholly and completely.<strong>

**again, disclaimer: j.k. rowling ©**

* * *

><p><strong>Calla Lily<br>**_word count: 4739_

The next day she comes again, tentatively, afraid that someone would try to intervene, or that someone would notice she's going to the same place – again.

She pays the fee and goes automatically to the turquoise room, three walls the foamy blue-green and the last an entire slab of clear glass.

The orangutan is closer to the window this time and she presses up to the glass, left side pushed against it and head leaning centimetres away from where the orangutan sits. There are more people today crowded behind her, most of them being little boys and girls with stern school teachers or reprimanding mothers. She ignores them and uses the crowd as an excuse to press up against the hard glass like it's nothing at all. The clicks of disposable cameras resound heavily in her ears along with aimless chatter of students and teachers and clueless parents.

"Mum, why isn't the monkey doing anything?" A girl with red ribbons weaved in her braids looks up at her mother, a tall willowy woman who shrugs her shoulders. The girl pounds on the glass wall, the few fine centimetres that separate its world from theirs – only a few centimetres of Plexi-glass. The girl with braids sighs and moves on, dragging her mother away as the older woman hugs with impatience.

Lily watches the spectacle with interested eyes, noticing the way the girl's tiny fist against the firm material makes an echo in Lil's left ear – the one pressed against it.

The orangutan stirs from its lazy pose on the grass, reddish-brown fur sticking up this way and that, the blanket now lying across its arched back.

She hums a tune to herself, grabbing a book out of her jacket pocket and beginning to read, glasses perched on her nose. She waits until the crowd diminishes and she's alone with the orangutan once more.

"See," she says, this time both hands pressed to the glass, "we're the same."

The orangutan looks at her, and that's all it takes for her to smile.

* * *

><p>She comes again. And again. And again. The surly bald man at the entrance comes to recognise her and she buys a season pass, flashing it briefly to him before making her way to the Turquoise Room as she has deemed it.<p>

She speaks regularly to the orangutan and finds out it's a he and his name is Brian. Sometimes she thinks she's going a bit loony; other times she lets herself relax, and just be content.

She tells him – Brian – of Teddy and how she's waiting for her impending doom, and how she can't avoid him forever, and how she might just be the slightest bit afraid.

She gives her heart to this lovely creature so similar to herself and one day Brian presses his hand to the clear glass, and she does as well, and she knows that she is happy with the marble chess piece stuck in her pocket and the clear glass wall that seems more like a mirror.

One day she leaves her chess piece by the glass wall at the zoo. It's nothing big; she leaves it in a small fissure between one of the turquoise walls and the clear glass. It's well hidden and she almost forgets she's losing another part of herself (along with the one in the garden and in the potted plant and Harry's gift box.)

She throws herself into the zoo instead and leaves the chess pieces – the shapes of carved marble that are almost her lifeline, her Horcruxes even – the one thing that has been the same since childhood Lily – the one thing that has remained constant.

She doesn't think about this though. She doesn't think about anything. Not the way the pieces are almost delicately weaved into her life without her even noticing, not the way they have this sort of significance on her. Not of the way the chess pieces are essentially a part of her – and Teddy. She only thinks of Brian and the Turquoise Room and the glass wall that separates them, the mere mirror images of one another.

* * *

><p>A week before the beginning of August, she comes home from the zoo, opens the front door and finds a turquoise-haired man sitting at her dining table.<p>

The chess piece she's holding in the pocket of her jeans is dropped and she pulls her hand out of the pocket quickly. Suddenly she sees the man that never had time for her when she was eleven or twelve or thirteen – the man that didn't (couldn't) find the time to visit her and talk to her – the man that couldn't even find the time now.

And that's hardly something to blame someone for, since she's the one who cut off all ties and severed their relationship and stopped writing, but she's Lily Luna and she blames whether it's their fault or not.

Scowling, she pulls the hem of her shirt down self-consciously and ignores him.

"Not going to say hi, I presume?" his voice is eerily calm and he speaks lightly, though it sounds like it's forced.

And she almost bursts into tears because these are the first seven words he's said to her in years and years and Merlin, countless years.

She thinks carefully about what exactly she's going to say back – after all, she is Lily and she's got the mouth of a sailor, and she can't really trust herself to stay calm right now – not when Teddy's around.

"This is complete bullshit," she mutters under her breath, proceeds to treat her way upstairs, and leaves Teddy without an answer.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake, Lily!" he calls from the bottom of the stairs. It's evident neither of her parents or brothers are home, otherwise Teddy wouldn't be cursing like he is. "Fuck, Lily, it's been six fucking years! What do you _want_ me to say!"

Six years. Six _fucking_ years. It echoes in her mind; she realises all of a sudden, like she's just been jolted awake from a long, long nap, that she and Teddy haven't talked in six years. Seventy-two months. Two thousand, one hundred sixty days. Fifty one thousand, eight hundred and forty hours. Even more minutes – even more seconds. She feels a sudden tightening in her chest, and pain impales itself all along her body and her sliver of a soul. It's frightening and she – she's estranged herself from her very first _best friend_ for six effing years.

And then she is angry. The pain morphs into anger – metal, scalding, blinding anger that she can't control. Tears, ablaze, well up in her eyes and stab at the back of her eyes. She shoves her hand in her pocket violently and pulls out the chess piece, and she stares at herself in the mirror, bleary-eyed – this unknown being clutching a marble piece in a white-knuckled hand, eyes stained with tears and for a split second she forgets who she's staring at.

She raises her arm and hurls the chess piece directly at where the face – her face – is staring back at her in the mirror.

The mirror smashes into fragmented pieces that scatter dutifully along her hardwood floor, clinking on the ground, and then Teddy is there and he's looking absolutely horrified and Lily falls to the ground, sobbing.

"Fuck – fuck you, Teddy Lupin," she hiccups, trying to scoop up the mirror shards in her hand. "You should've, you should've –"

He stares in silence at this cataclysm of a girl, and pulls out his wand wordlessly.

"You should've tried hard – harder! You should've tried harder to be here – _bloody hell!_" she curses as the flick of his wand sends the mirror shards flying back to the empty wooden frame, including the ones in her palm as they slice open her hand and leave thick scarlet oozing out ever so slowly. "What the fuck!"

"Geez – I swear to God, Lily, I didn't mean to!" He swears again and rushes over to her, and Lily mulls over the double meaning behind his words as he examines her wound.

"Shut up, please, before I hurt you," she grinds out, ignoring the pleasant callousness of his hands against her smooth skin. He opens his mouth angrily to retort but closes it again, looking confused.

She looks at him another moment, wondering what it'd be like to run her hands through his hair – touch his face – stare into those changing eyes and feeling something other than platonic friendship.

She wonders what it'd be like if Victoire was right – if Lily really did love the dolt. If she could kiss him and touch him and.

She stops thinking and her gaze trails back to her hand. She isn't sure what she's feeling. She knows she'd love to have him back – _as a friend, alright?_ – to be able to confess her fears and for him to give her Teddy-smiles, to be what they used to.

But she can't keep the irritating voice at the back of her mind out – maybe she does want him, want him in that way – romantically. She thinks she might not be so opposed to the idea, if he weren't married, that is.

They are silent as she thinks. She goes over everything, remembers each moment; each time he gave her a new chess piece, each time he smiled at her, when he tickled her mercilessly, when he was the only one who could get her to be happy again. And when he puts a finger to her chin and makes her look up at him (she didn't even realise she was looking down) in that concerned way of his, she feels this shiver run through the air.

She feels a nudge of something new and entirely different, something more, and she pulls her hand away and stands up to brush herself off.

She glares, and he meets her eyes with the same smothering intensity, only reflected in grey eyes rather than jade green.

"Thank you," she says stiffly, trying not to think about the sudden goose flesh rising on her arms when he stares at her that way.

He replies with a "no problem".

She turns around and runs her fingers over the newly repaired mirror, watching her own fingers with feigned interest. "Hm. You did a good job with this." Mistakenly she looks into the mirror and then she sees his eyes in the mirror and they're flashing to jade, and she spins around and he is there, suddenly. His eyes are filled with resolve and _grit_ and determination, and before she can ask him what exactly he's doing, his lips are crashing down on hers.

A split second later she pushes him off with sudden energy as quickly as she can, ignoring the way her arms don't seem to want to cooperate and her legs are shaking slightly and her lips are tingling.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing!" she all but shrieks at him, finger combing her messy halo of curls. "You're fucking married! Shit, shit, shit, just – just – what the _fuck!_"

He breathes raggedly, splotches of red blooming on his cheeks, eyes still the same shade of jade green. "I thought it was what you'd wanted! I thought that was the reason you were avoiding me! Isn't this what you wanted?" He pulls her chin up toward him, lips in such close proximity to hers and copied green orbs fierce.

She pulls away, again disregarding the symptoms; her fast beating heart and sudden sweaty palms aren't there – no, she's feeling nothing at all.

"No! Lupin, it's not what I wanted at all! What are you going on about!" she thinks she might be lying – she thinks she might be lying – she thinks she might like him that way (maybe, possibly) after all.

But he's married, and he's forbidden, and Merlin, how could she not have realised earlier? How the fuck could she have thought this was purely platonic, ever?

He groans audibly (though she can sense the relief behind it), steps back, and runs a hand through his hair. "So I – so I did that for nothing?"

_No_. "Obviously!"

"So, er, do you think we could just, um, forget about it?"

"No, we need to fucking talk. Right now," she says firmly, paying no attention (none at all) to how it stings that he just wants to forget about it.

He sighs. "Fire away."

"First of all – what the hell gave you the indication I wanted you to _kiss_ me?"

She wonders this, how he could just give up fidelity in his marriage because – because what? Because she, herself had been giving signs she was _in love _with the man? She hadn't spoken to him in years; what even gave him the notion she had wanted anything to happen?

"James. Albus." (She vows to kill them later.) Teddy shrugs, and the tension is still there, the _awkwardness_ is still there, but it seems to have eased up the tiniest bit. "They told me you refused to talk about me – and that you'd been...erm, _with..._multiple guys lately. I thought it was because of – well, me. Because you couldn't have me."

"Oh, good Lord, Teddy," she rolls her eyes. "For fuck's sake, my life does not revolve around you, love."  
>"Used to," he shoots back, and they glare at each other before he sighs and continues. "Next question."<p>

"Well – why now? Why'd you come to see me – _us_ – now?"

"Lily, I haven't seen you in years, _yes_. I still care, y'know, and I'm - I'm not as busy this summer," he pauses, repeats, "I still care. No matter what you think."

She feels a prickling sensation at the back of her eyes again. She angrily wipes the tears away. Teddy pretends not to notice.

"Okay, so –" She clears her throat. "How could kissing me _help_? Yes, blah blah, you thought I was in love with you or some bullshit like that, but how, exactly, was kissing me going to make that _better_? What the hell were you planning to do after, if I really did – _love_ you?"

He scrunches up his eyebrows and cringes. "Hm. I dunno. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

She sighs and raises an eyebrow. "Right. Well, you're a completely and utter lunatic. Leave."

She pushes herself off the mirror (which she hadn't realised she'd been leaning against), and grabs his arms, beginning to push him toward the door. No, she definitely does _not_ like this idiot in that way. No, of course not. (No, her hand is not currently tingling from touching his arm, _shut up_.)

"Wait a minute – you're just kicking me out? Just like that?" he asks incredulously, not budging in the slightest. "You don't want to tell me what's actually going on?"

She pretends to think, being careful not to look at his gray eyes (or maybe they're jade, she's not there). "How about...no."

He is still not budging. "I'll be back tomorrow, just so you know. If you kick me out now."

"Fantastic, I suppose I'll just file for a restraining order, then," she glares, and manages to push him out the door. (He seems to have stopped struggling.)

She slams the door after him, flops onto her bed, and stares at the chess piece lying on its side on the floor. She thinks of him who confuses her so, and wonders if she really does fancy Teddy Lupin.

* * *

><p>The next day she goes back to the zoo and tries oh-so very hard not to count down the minutes until Teddy arrives at her home. Lily can't help but wonder if he actually cares enough to come back. She'll only ignore him, after all. She doesn't want him there. She doesn't, she doesn't.<p>

She wets her lips nervously and watches Brian lope around his home, climbing onto the hammock. She doesn't pay attention, however, only grips the black knight tightly in her hand and wonders what the hell she's going to do.

And he is there when she arrives. He sits at the dining table, chatting with her mother aimlessly and laughing when she opens the door. He inclines his head toward her and shoots her a smile and cheeky wink. Lily ignores her jittery stomach and blames it reclusively on indigestion.

She stomps upstairs without a greeting, hating the effect he has on her _still_, after all these years, all this time. From her room, through the locked door, she can still hear him mutter a quick something to her mother before climbing the stairs.

With trepidation he knocks on her door, calling, "Lily!" She is painfully reminded of her ninth birthday, when he'd given her her third chess piece. "Told you I'd be back."

She rolls her eyes but nonetheless feels the butterflies dancing in her stomach and she can't even think to blame it on indigestion again. "Don't care, Lupin. You're an idiot."

"A lovable idiot?"

"No."

From outside the door, he heaves a grave sigh, dropping all signs of playfulness. "Well, we still need to talk."

"No, we don't."

"Yes, we absolutely do."

"You really do!" calls her mother from down the stairs, and Lily considers burrowing her head in her pillow and screaming as loud as she can.

She hears Teddy's loud chuckle from outside the door. "See?"

"You really want to talk about it?" she asks, pulling herself up and going to stand near the door.

She can almost hear the incredulity in his voice. "Yes. Are you giving in?"

"Absolutely not," replies Lily satisfyingly, and Teddy sighs exasperatedly again.

"We need to talk about some _other things_ as well," he hisses through the door. Lily recognises the frustration in his voice and remembers the one-second kiss they shared – which was hardly anything more than a peck, really.

"You are a ponce. It wasn't even a proper snog, idiot. Don't worry your pretty little head about it," she snarls back, and somewhere inside her is a tiny Lily shrieking its head off in protest. Okay, so maybe she'd wished it was a bit longer.

It didn't mean she liked him that way, alright? It's perfectly normal to want to snog someone that you haven't seen in six years. Perfectly understandable.

Lily groans to herself and fights off the inexplicable clamminess of her hands.

"I should be heading home," he says through the door, "You going to let me in, or what?"

She feels the tiniest bit disappointed, but masks it as relief. "Nope."

There's a heavy silence that hangs in the air, that lasts a couple of moments, and, sensing his defeat, Teddy begins trudging down the stairs. She hears him call out a quick goodbye to Ginny, the hints of dissatisfaction evident in his tone, and finally she hears the slamming of the front door.

No, she doesn't fucking want to talk.

* * *

><p>He is there every day. Every single day she arrives back home with a smile on her face, until she sees the mess of turquoise hair from the doorway and the smile drops from her face like Stinksap.<p>

She ignores his persistent jibes and jokes, disregards his insistent tone when he demands she tell him why she'd been so wild lately. She doesn't want to tell him it's because of him, and she definitely does not want him knowing that Lily has lost control of herself – of her entire life, in fact.

She doesn't know she went from sweet but conniving Calla Lily to – to Lily who parties and sleeps with random guys and lets her grades slip, slip, slip. She sheds the Calla of Calla Lily, the sweet flowery part of her – her petals fall to the ground with the grace of a broken angel, black and deadened, and _gone_. She doesn't want him to know that he'd been such a significant part of her life that, when he even _began_ to leave it, she had broken like some common rag doll.

Lily stuffs the Muggle earphones in her ears and tries hard not to listen to the words he's saying – of how she'll 'feel better' when she talks to him about it – and wonders when he'll stop. (Secretly she enjoys the attention, and the fact that he's back.)

Lily Luna had never thought weak was a word to describe her, but now she they were practically synonymous.

* * *

><p>Teddy Lupin is really fucking stubborn, are the words running through her mind as she sees him for the third time that week, and for the sixth time that month.<p>

It is August now and he'd come to see her every day without fail, adding up to a grand total of thirteen times. And now she is secretly warming up to him and had once, _once_ considered telling him of the woes of her pathetic life (after that idiot thought she'd immediately gone to go shriek into a pillow) and the whole thing was just a sad, sad, _sad_ affair.

Alright, so she's secretly happy that the thing that had caused her to become this catastrophe was back (to fix it, to fix her), but of course, she didn't _tell_ him that. Sometimes she wonders if maybe she's too secretive for her own good, but then again – she's Slytherin for a reason.

Going to the zoo every day has become a sort of background thing in her life, something she has pushed to the recesses of her mind, and even though she tells Brian the Orangutan everything, every woe and every twinge of hurt she had been feeling ever since Teddy had been back (she had never said she was _completely_ okay with him coming back), she did not believe Brian and she were so similar anymore.

And if (when) she got Teddy back, Brian would be erased from her life completely. She'll be happy and she'll have Amity back and her parents would smile at her again, and her grades would rise once again to O's, and everything would be _alright_.

After all, when you eliminate the origin of the problem, the rest goes away, right? She'll have Teddy again as her best friend (and when she was feeling particularly hopeful-slash-delirious, more than best friends) and all would be well.

So this means she has to let him in first, and let herself spill her most shameful secrets (and possibly, most pitiable), and maybe she isn't ready for that yet.

Maybe it isn't time to unfold herself and become Vulnerable Girl, but she'll be ready for it eventually, she's sure. Well, at least she thinks she'll be. (And meanwhile, what is she supposed to do with these on again, off again romantic feelings, exactly?)

* * *

><p>It is an ordinary day in mid-August; he has not stopped pestering her and she has not stopped ignoring him.<p>

She plucks another chess piece off her bedside table and throws it toward her closet, and listens for the clatter of the marble hitting the floor.

It makes a satisfying sound. She hasn't cracked yet. Her parents don't expect her to, and neither does Albus, but Teddy has more determination than Rose Weasley before her exams (and _that_'s saying a lot).

It is a normal day (or, as normal as a day can be in Lily Potter's life). She's returned from the zoo and talking to Brian and sees Teddy sitting dutifully at the dining table, and naturally she goes upstairs without a word and locks the door behind her.

"Lily, we _need to talk_," says Teddy loudly.

"No, we really _don't_. You can go back to living your _lovely_ life and I can go wallow in misery again, thanks," she snaps back, but in truth, she really does not want him to go. She takes a deep breath and hums something under her breath, and wonders what Amity is doing at the moment.

She gets this wonderful feeling every time Teddy speaks to her, no matter how much she attempts to deny it. _I still care, y'know_.

Sometimes she deludes herself into thinking it's something that doesn't matter, but every day he comes the feeling grows largely in the pit of her stomach and she knows, is absolutely certain that these are not purely platonic feelings.

Her crying has lessened and she's obviously less bipolar, but she's still fierce and unfeeling, and though she spends quiet solitude at the zoo, she kind of wants to party. She wants to party and get unbelievably drunk so she can forget this whole ordeal about having romantic feelings for Teddy Lupin. Her mind's been in a bit of a mess lately and a drink would calm her, make her feel better. Or a good shag would, she's not picky.

She is half-frustrated with her god brother, and half-happy he cares so much to waste his time with her every day. She is frustrated because he was right – his assumptions her right, she does like him more than she should –and she's happy because maybe this care could blossom into something _possibly_ more.

When he's around, she is a little girl again, dreaming of a happy ending and a knight in shining armour to sweep her away.

And then when she's alone – she becomes cynical Lily, realistic Lily, wild, partying, _not okay_ Lily. And this Lily is completely _not_ confusing and actually knows how she's feeling – like she wants to let loose and get piss drunk so she won't have to think about anything, anything at all.

"I am completely stupid," she says out loud to herself. Teddy stops talking for a minute outside the door. "I am so fucking stupid."

She closes her eyes and this pool of never ending emotions amasses inside her and she is ready to just explode into billions and billions of tiny Lily pieces.

She just sits there and attempts fruitlessly to understand what exactly she's feeling – who exactly she's being, she's _trying_ to be – and damn, did Teddy Lupin mess her up.

She is one fucked-up girl, she thinks fully, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

It is an ordinary day in mid-August when Lily Luna cracks, opens the door, and begins to talk.

* * *

><p>She tells him everything except her newfound feelings for him. It's already a lot to take in and she doesn't want to make this awkward. She wants her confession to be as quick and painless as possible.<p>

She tells him of how she felt when he stopped coming over. He protests a bit there and claims he was busy, and while it is a plausible excuse, this is still Lily Luna Potter and everything about her is unreasonable.

She tells him of how she sunk into this new Lily – a girl with an attitude, and one who spent countless days getting drunk and sleeping easily with random boys. She tells him of the numbing impression she loves oh-so dearly, and he sits and he listens, and he hears.

She tells him of all the problems he'd caused her indirectly – her grades and her bitchiness and her parents not caring were all a result of her – her wild side, and it's irrational, maybe, but if Teddy had only visited, this problem wouldn't have existed in the first place.

He tells her she is an idiot for not writing him, and he tells her he really does care, and that he really was busy and that he hadn't known she'd be so affected by his lack of attention that she become this mould of a new Lily.

He tells her this, and then he wraps his arms around her and hugs her, and for once Lily feels like she's almost okay as she holds a chess piece in her clenched fist.

She knows she's acting somewhat like a petulant child – she knows she's being coddled, and she knows she is completely, utterly pitiful.

But she'll sort that out later because right now she is focused on fixing herself – herself with the chess pieces and the flowery smiles and the zoo visitations.

* * *

><p>"Calla Lily!" Teddy calls as he strolls into the house, grinning. She walks down the stairs and grins at him and he ruffles her hair. She can't help the fluttering sensation in her stomach.<p>

She's Accio'ed the chess pieces back to their original place, on top of the rickety wooden dresser from so many years ago, and she feels like a child again.

Just him around her makes her that much happier.

* * *

><p><strong>an: and they finally talk. cheesy ending to the chapter, i know. ;)**

**please don't favourite/alert without reviewing.**


	3. Turn

**a/n: guys, i'm so sorry! i literally lost all inspiration to write this, but i think i'll be okay-ish now. i finished this chapter, which is shorter than the last two, but i think i'll be able to update a bit faster, hopefully. um, i'm thinking i'm going to write the next two chapters (around 8,000-10,000 words) and then post one at a time, just so i don't get so behind on updates.**

**disclaimer: j.k. rowling ©**

* * *

><p><strong>Calla Lily<strong>  
><em>word count: 4001<em>

It is nearly the end of August, and Lily sits on her front porch, leaning back on her arms and head tilted back, a sliver of sunlight on her pale throat. Teddy hasn't come yet today. She watches the red blazing sun disappear into the horizon, and the orange-yellow dissolve into a rich blue that glitters with diamond stars, and she waits.

A man comes loping up the path, hands stuffed in his pocket half an hour later. He is not smiling. Lily barely recognises him – eyes black, hair black, filled with this dullness.

"Hi," she says a bit breathlessly, sort of hating the way she sounds – like a love stricken young girl with her heart on her sleeve.

"Hi," replies he, and then he sits down beside her. "So – your Seventh Year's almost starting."

"Yeah."

"I...I've had fun, Lily," he says, sounding apologetic.

She pauses once before answering. "Me too."

"Lily – do you want me to write you?" he says in a rush, his hand jumping to his hair and his eyes sparking jade. Lily looks at him for a moment, deliberating, and then she looks up at the starry sky with a look of almost-wonderment in her eyes. She knows what he means – that will she succumb to the broken girl she was before he came back? That will she resume her life of endless drinking, endless partying?

"No," she says, and surprises herself. "No, I think I'll be alright."

He looks at her for a long, long time, thinking that maybe he might anyway. His head tilted to the side, he leans against the wooden railing of the front steps, and all of sudden Lily notices he's wearing a tailored suit, and she frowns.

"Why are you dressed like that?" she asks brazenly, cocking an eyebrow.

He blinks as he processes her words.

"Oh – it's just for a party. A, uh, pregnancy party actually." He rubs the back of his neck uncomfortable. "She's, erm, pregnant again." He smiles a bit weakly and Lily wonders how Teddy could look so _old_ at the age of twenty-eight.

"Oh," replies Lily in a strange voice. "Good for you."

Teddy attempts another smile before it suddenly before it drops.

"Yeah..." Teddy says warily. Hesitating, he continues. "Can I tell you something?"

She turns her body toward him; he understands.

"I don't – I'm tired of…kids." Her eyes widen and both her eyebrows raise. He backtracks, flushing slightly. "No, don't get me wrong; I love my kids. I really do. It's just getting really tiring, y'know? It's like..."

"Like you want to do something, but you can't anymore? Like they're maybe, kind of a burden?" she says blatantly.

Teddy flinches. "Not a burden! I know I love them. I love talking to them and reading them stories at night and feeding then and playing with them...sometimes, though..."

"You just want a break, right?" Lily holds onto the chess piece in her pocket and swallows, hard.

He looks at her sheepishly and nods, ashamed. His head drops to his hands, elbows propped on his knees.

"Teddy. _Teddy_, look at me," Lily says firmly, and when he looks up she's wearing a soup-top smile and she flies forward toward him and her lips land on his. Her hands press against his knees and she leans on him, lips pressed together in a glorious embrace, one that makes the world spin and Teddy hits his head against the wooden banister behind him.

"Lily –" he gasps against her mouth, his hands unconsciously circling her back and pulling her closer. "_Lily_."

And she almost pulls away – the sound of her name, husky from his lips – but she can't find it in herself to do so. She only sighs contentedly and moves her lips gently against his, until Teddy finally grabs her by the arms and pushes her back, off of him.

His eyes are, no doubt, jade green, and his hair's a surprising shade of bright red – his cheeks match the colour.

"Lily," he says. He can only say her name, and she, with her tiny orangutan smile and the chess piece that has now fallen out of her pocket and onto the dirt, puts her hand on his cheek.

"I know," says she simply, and then she stands up to brush herself off. "Bye, Teddy."

She walks barefoot on her porch and twists the lacklustre doorknob carefully, and then she opens the door and tiptoes inside and Teddy, whose hair has melted back into turquoise, stands up and Apparates away.

* * *

><p>Summer is soon over; the bright, leafy green of the trees turn gradually into shades of red and orange and golden yellow.<p>

* * *

><p>Lily boards the train with her trunk floating behind her, and unreadable expression dominating her face. She bullies a First Year into giving her one of the compartments and then she sits, legs crossed, staring out the window.<p>

Amity McLaggen is not a complicated girl. She is a girl with a smirk for everyone – someone is either Amity's best friend or worst enemy. So when Amity McLaggen stumbles into the compartment with a trunk in tow, she glares at Lily and Lily smiles sardonically back.

"Can I sit here, then?" Amity snarls and Lily replies with a quick nod. They sit in uncomfortable silence as the tension hands heavy in the stuffy air. She tells herself not to pay attention to Amity, who's also determinedly avoiding the redhead's eye.

"Ami –" Lily frowns inwardly. Amity barely turns away from the misted window.

"I kissed him," she says in a rush, and this time Amity's eyes widen and she whips her head around to stare at her former best friend. Lily whispers, swallowing her pride, "I kissed him, and he said my name."

And then Amity is staring and Lily feels terribly like crying, so she does, and Amity gathers her in her arms and hexes the gits who come by to ask.

"I messed up," mutters Lily to her newly restored best mate, and Amity shrugs as they traipse toward the carriages. "He was talking to me about stupid Victoire with her stupid babies and how he kind of, sort of wants a break, and I just up and kissed him!"

They fall into silence and spend a moment climbing onto the carriages.

"You have to tell me everything," declares Amity finally, looking up at Lily with an expression on her face that is completely and utterly unfathomable. "You have to tell me _more_, Potter. I can't help if you won't tell me about the man that's been causing you pain for seven years – and counting."

She winces at the sound of her last name. Amity has not yet completely forgiven her.

"Firstly, though, I'm uh..." Lily groans and closes her eyes. Finally she manages to choke out, "Sorry. I'm, um, sorry."

And it's maybe the second-or-third time Lily Luna Potter's ever apologised and it's fitting that it's to her best friend, and maybe she can feel herself turning a new leaf – and surprisingly enough, it feels almost...good. Amity cracks a grin at her words.

"S'alright, Potter. Suppose I'll just have to get you back with a prank." Her eyes glitter mischievously and Lily grins back.

And she heaves a sigh of utter and complete relief inwardly, and she tells Amity everything – and all the while, one of the chess pieces sits dutifully in her closed fist.

* * *

><p>For the first few months of her Seventh Year, she realises she hasn't partied once. She keeps going back to Teddy and how he kissed her back, and how confused she's been feeling. She holds chess pieces in her hands and stares at them sitting on her nightstand and spends hours upon hours talking to Amity and just thinking.<p>

She knows – _she knows_ Lily from last year was nothing but a – but a _mould._ But a mould for who? She doesn't know who to be, now that summer's over (ending, predictably, with one of the biggest mistakes she's made in her lifetime) and Calla Lily is just Lily without her counterpart, her partner-in-crime, Teddy. And then Teddy.

From what she knows she's having two major problems as of now – her identity and the confusing man known otherwise as Teddy Lupin.

Who is she without her partying and her sleeping around? Who is she without Teddy to _make_ her into a better person – make her into the Calla Lily she was from her childhood – sweet and fun and ohso Hufflepuff. Who is the girl who keeps chess pieces in her pockets and constantly writes letters to orangutans named Brian and who, for the life of her, can't even solve her own god damn problems?

Teddy Lupin is another issue – who the fuck does he think he is, hurting her and then sneaking, _slithering_ his way back into her life? Frankly, she thinks she liked it better when life was simple and all she did was let loose and have as much fun as she could. And he makes her into a better person – into a paragon, someone who he'd like to think she is – he forces her, however gently and unassumingly, into a mould of his very own creation – Calla Lily.

The girl is full of confusing feelings and things she's not even sure she really likes or understands, and her complexity is so deep she herself can't even understand it. And when Teddy Lupin assists her and causes her to fit into the puzzle piece paragon girl who's actually really very _good_, better, she has to go and complicate things again by kissing him.

He makes her into simplicity, but their relationship is far, far from it.

* * *

><p>One day, it hits her. Lily Luna Potter is going through what is called an identity crisis. And she realises this and she groans at the melodramatics of being a typical teenaged girl and then she tells this to Amity, who only laughs in response.<p>

Christmas holidays are coming up and Lily is not looking forward to them. She smiles and acts like she believes it, acts like she's happy to be returning home while knowing, undoubtedly, that Teddy and Victoire and their chocolate-box assortment of children will be there waiting.

She is merely a girl now – she cannot even say she is Lily Luna Potter because she doesn't know who that is – she's having a bit of trouble trying to figure it out.

So she returns home with a smile as fake as her stupid Lily-Moulds.

* * *

><p>All of a sudden it's Christmas Day and after everyone has finished unwrapping presents, the party is in full swing and her various family members dance with their various significant others and occasional just-friend (Lucy and Lorcan). Lily stretches out on an armchair and tips a Butterbeer bottle to her lips.<p>

Victoire is there and what looks like the beginning signs of a baby bump are appearing (though Lily says she just looks fat), and the youngest baby is still on her hip and her other three kids are running around shrieking, and lobbing spoonfuls of mashed potatoes at their multiple aunts and uncles. Lily thinks their children are absolutely beastly when one spatters gravy all over her front and Victoire only laughs (good-naturedly, her _ass_.)

He is nowhere in sight, Lily muses. She knows he is probably avoiding her and busy socialising with her (and, she supposes, his) family, and attempting to get his kids under control.

She absolutely refuses to get drunk tonight, declining when Dominique offers her a Peppermint Schnapp and when Molly levitates a couple of Ogden's Firewhiskey bottles disguised as Butterbeers over to her.

Amity flits by to talk to her sometimes, when she's not off dancing subtly with Al, looking breathless and close to forcing Lily out of that chair with a well-aimed hex.

"You're being a fat whale," Amity grumbles to her best mate, who throws the Butterbeer bottle at her in response, and which Amity dodges successfully. "I'm off with your brother doing all sorts of naughty things and you don't even look the slightest bit repulsed!"

"Oh, bugger off," says Lily-Mould in reply, tapping her fingers on the upholstery restlessly when she spots a mess of turquoise coloured hair. "I'm busy glaring daggers at Teddy fucking Lupin and hoping he'll notice my evident annoyance and come here to talk to me. Or at least tell me I'm being a fat, lazy whale."

"I've just told you that!" says Amity indignantly, laughing all the same and flicking Lily in the ear as she parades off back into the crowd of dancing bodies and laughing and mingling.

Lily sits there and seethes and finally musters up enough courage (read: downs enough bottles of Butterbeer) to be able to talk to Teddy. She is barely tipsy as she pushes her way through James and Evangeline, and Rose and Scorpius, and her mother and father and many more slow-dancing couples in the crowded room to find Vic standing all proud and pregnant bellied on the opposite side of the room, sans Teddy.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." She rolls her eyes and turns around to retreat into the armchair again, but instead finds herself face to face with Dominique.

"Language, baby cousin," the older girl grins, Peppermint Schnapp in hand. "Wouldn't wan' your mummy and dad to 'ear you sayin' _that_."

"You're drunk," states Lily. "And don't call me your baby cousin, 'Monique, I'm barely six months younger." She ducks under Dominique's raised arm and continues to make her way back to the suddenly comfortable looking chair, but her cousin only trails behind her and Lily-Mould glares fruitlessly.

"Oh, cuz, I know all about your little _kiss_," Dominique slurs, gazing with glassed eyes on the dance floor.

For one second Lily panics and then she realises her cousin is completely piss drunk and probably doesn't even give a shit sober.

"Really."

"Yeah, you little –" Dominique giggles. "– you ickle little minx! Good fuckin' job on tha', love."

Lily, at this point, could care less and just wants to talk to Teddy, so she blurts out the first thing on her mind – which is really not the best idea.

"I love him, 'Monique."

"Really! Wha' kind of love? Like you love a – a pet or a baby 'ipgriff?" Dominique grins again and starts laughing uncontrollably. "I mean – I mean 'ippogriff!"

"No, like how you love Scorpius," she replies smarmily and watches as Dominique's giggles subside and her laughter melts into drunken rage as she stares at Rose and Scorpius on the dance floor.

"Thass – 'snot funny, Lil! Not funny! Not fair!" Dominique's dazed smile comes back fully fledged. "Foul! Penalty for sayin' 'is name!"

Dominique begins to laugh again and Lily looks stony-faced at her cousin.

"I know how you feel about him, 'Monique. Why do you let them be happy together? Why don't you _do_ anything?"

Dominique shrugs and looks soberly at Lily, though the glazed eyes give away her actual level of sobriety.

"Sometimes, Lil, you gotta giv'up the very bes' things in life." Lily thinks about this and Dominique interrupts with another giggle, this time including hiccups, "I soun' –"_hiccup _"I soun' like a damn –" _hiccup_ "- a damn fil-o-so-ferrrr, haha! 'Sn't tha' funny, cuz? Phil-ah-sul-fur!"

She sighs and places Dominique's arm around her shoulder, and then proceeds to drag the giggling girl to the nearest bathroom, casting a Sobering Charm and then locking the door amidst her cousin's protests and retching noises.

She slides away from the door and strolls back out into the party – well, she tries to, but then she bumps into someone.

And it just so happens to be the man she's been looking for all _fucking_ night.

"Teddy," she says in surprise, looking up at him. His ears have gone red and his eyes flick to automatic jade green.

"Lily," he says tersely back and rubs the nape of his neck a tad uncomfortably.

"Haven't, uh, haven't seen you all night. Was just on my way to the, er, bathroom." He gestures in the direction of the bathroom, where the vomiting sounds of Dominique is louder than the music from the party.

"It's occupied," she says, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, guess so," he pauses and continues. "Too bad, I s'pose. Well, I uh, guess I should be tending to Vic now – she probably needs me..."

It's a sore subject for the both of them, considering last time they talked about Victoire and prettypretty babies Lily, in a lapse of judgment, had kissed him.

"Pregnant whales can get on fine on their own," replies Lily, looking thoughtful. "And besides, she's hiding it, anyway. She still looks relatively thin, although when she was concealing it I 'spose she missed a bit, considering it kind of sort of looks like she's just consumed three turkeys."

She's exaggerating, she knows – and she realises she's being Lily Mould Number 1 – the partying bitch – and for Merlin's sake she's not even drunk right now! He replies with a feeble defence of his wife.

"Well, _anyway_," she interrupts with a cocked eyebrow when he says for the millionth time Victoire is not a fat whale and instead proclaims her a graceful dolphin or some other sea creature of the sort, and she wonders how on Earth could someone possibly be worse at defending than he is. "We need to talk."

And as if someone has just turned on a light switch she is terribly reminded of her summer days and his persistency and it's like déjà vu, but the roles are reversed. She realises something – that right now, even with her counterpart standing a meter away from her and his gentle 'Puff-ness she is not Calla Lily, and nor was she when he had first come knocking on her bedroom door in mid-July. Right now and then she was still bitch Lily, and this bitch Lily Mould has never seemed so real. (Or maybe she's spent too many years pretending that what's a facade, what's a mould _has_ become a reality for her.)

"Lily?" Teddy's voice comes floating from the abyss in her thoughts, and frowning, she looks at him with renewed eyes and drags her finger lazily along the hem of her dress.

"I'm not her," she says. He assumes she is talking about Dominique and looks confused.

"Well, _yeah_, she's Dominique and you're Lily," he replies obviously, staring at her strangely.

She glares at him as if angry he does not understand. "I'm not her." She repeats the mantra in her mind over and over and stares piercingly at Teddy, who only manages to look adorably confused.

"I'm not your god damn Calla Lily," she reiterates coldly and his eyebrows knit together, looking bemused. "I might've been a long, long time ago, but I'm not now."

"I never said you were," he raises a dark eyebrow at her and then Dominique stumbles, heaving, from the bathroom humming her own rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", which sounds suspiciously like "Rudolph the Fuck-Nosed Deer-That-Wouldn't-Just-Accept-He-Was-Fucking-Different" under her breath. Lily is there supporting her cousin in a flash. With Dominique's thin arm wrapped around her shoulders and she practically dragging the dead weight behind her, she doesn't bother with a goodbye. Only her eyes flick to his for the barest of moments before her sour disposition takes over once more and Fred trips into the hall, Roxanne at his heels.

* * *

><p>Lily hates Christmas now. She brings Dominique back to Shell Cottage, and then she walks home. If she isn't Calla Lily, is she party-hard Lily? She doesn't know what she wants – who she is – she groans. The woes of being a teenage girl.<p>

_Life_, she muses, _is too fucking complicated. _Why can't life be filled with one love, one soul mate you have for the rest of your life, and that's it? Why can't life be filled with love and no angst and just – just –

Ah, fuck it. She goes back to the zoo. It seems Brian's the only reliable one around here now.

* * *

><p>Christmas hols are over within <em>seconds<em>, and then it's back to school. The months pass, and nothing decidedly important or significant happens – no epiphanies cross Lily's mind, no rude awakenings or sudden enlightenment – Lily knows she's screwed when by the time the _Easter_ holidays come around, she still has no idea what to do.

Some things are simply too complicated for a teenaged girl to handle. She makes plans with Amity, makes her come over to their house to ease the fucking awkward tension that's bound to be there, and Amity agrees with the promise of Grandma Molly's chocolate eggs.

Some things, that are far too complicated for a teenaged girl to handle, get easier using the concept of AAA - or, as Lily likes to call it, ACCEPT, AVOID, and absolutely ABANDON. (Amity insists this is a bad idea, but really, what has she got to lose now?)

The train ride home – boring. The car ride home – awkward – Teddy spent the car ride avoiding everyone's eye. The days after – well, no word can describe the events that occur except _chaos_.

Well, Lily supposes later, Easter definitely could've gone worse. Victoire could've killed her, or something. She guesses Victoire doesn't like it when she sees her husband's lips on another girl's.

She swears she had tried to stop him when it happened. It was he who'd insisted, he who'd wanted to kiss her, he who'd kept leading her on like she were some sort of fucking puppy or something that would obey his every damn command.

Or, y'know. Something like that.

* * *

><p>She's been fucking pissed, and when Lily Luna Potter is fucking pissed, it's probably best if you don't bother her.<p>

Unfortunately, Teddy Lupin doesn't know this because he steps right up behind her on Easter Sunday, placing a large, warm hand on her shoulder.

"Figured everything out yet?" he says quietly, watching her watch the other cousins and multiple children run around, searching for the Easter eggs Aunt Hermione had hidden earlier in the day. "Who you are, and the shit you were spouting during Christmas break?"

"It's not shit. And no, I haven't, thank you very much," snaps she, preoccupied with training her eyes on Amity, flirting incessantly with Al. Rolling her eyes at her friend's antics, she turns back to look at Teddy once, disdainfully, and then – well.

She shrugs his hand off, eyes going squinty when Albus places his hand blatantly on Amity's bum. She turns away, not wanting to imagine her best friend and brother together.

"Vic doesn't know what happened at Christmas, right?" she mutters carefully, heart beating too quickly. Teddy shakes his head, a short shake. Easters were always dramatic – someone always ended up crying or getting dumped or kissed or something, and Lily really should've known better. The backyard of the Burrow is in obvious disarray, Wellington boots constantly getting knocked over, people tripping on broomsticks.

"Lily," he says suddenly after a minute of silence, a minute of watching the rest of their family dive on each other for the eggs, hexes being sent every which way. He is beckoning toward her, hand raised in a _come-hither_ gesture that, if it were anyone else, would've been interpreted as creepy.

He crosses the threshold into the house, hands nervously clenching and unclenching at his sides. She raises a cool eyebrow at his back and thinks, _Fuck it_, and follows him in with a grim, determined look on her face.

She is prepared for anything when she ends up following him into one of the bedrooms, and for a second her mind wanders to something very dirty, but that thought disappears almost as quickly as it comes.

He clears his throat uncomfortably and straightens himself to look at her. She stares back, keeping a two-meter radius from him at all times. She can't afford then touching again, and she can't afford giving in and kissing him again.

"Lily," he starts, looking unsure, "I think I love you."

Well, _fuck._

* * *

><p><strong>an: getting all cliff-hanger-y and cliché, but i swear, this is not going to be a cliché story. oh, god, i'm so corny. i'm sorry guys.**

**reviews?**


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